Item 1A. Risk Factors
ITEM 1A. RISK FACTORS
Several of our and our collaboration partners’ current and planned clinical trials have been impacted and could be further delayed or suspended as a result of the military action by Russia in Ukraine.
In February 2022, Russia commenced a military invasion of Ukraine. A portion of our clinical trial evaluating AB-836 and a cohort of Antios’ clinical trial evaluating a triple combination including AB-729 are being conducted in Ukraine. We had also planned to conduct a portion of the following clinical trials in Ukraine: (i) our Phase 2a clinical trial evaluating AB-729 in combination with ongoing NA therapy and short courses of PEG-IFNα-2a in cHBV patients and (ii) our planned Phase 2a clinical trial to evaluate a triple combination of AB-729 with Vaccitech’s VTP-300 and a NA. We intend to utilize alternative clinical trial sites for our ongoing and planned clinical trials impacted by the military action in Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion and the ensuing response by Ukraine has disrupted our and our collaboration partners’ current clinical trials in such jurisdictions and could increase our costs and disrupt future planned clinical development activities. For example, enrollment was completed in a cohort of patients in Antios’ ongoing Phase 2a proof-of-concept clinical trial evaluating a triple combination of AB-729, Antios’ proprietary Active Site Polymerase Inhibitor Nucleotide (ASPIN), ATI-2173, and Viread (tenofovir disoproxil fumarate), a nucleos(t)ide reverse transcriptase inhibitor. However, the majority of patients in this cohort were enrolled in Ukraine and, as a result, these patients have been lost to follow-up before completing the clinical trial. Therefore, we and Antios do not expect to report data on this cohort.
Although the length and impact of Russia’s military action is highly unpredictable, actions by Russia, or potentially other countries, against Ukraine and surrounding areas may adversely affect our ability to adequately conduct or complete certain clinical trials and maintain compliance with relevant protocols due to, among other reasons, the prioritization of hospital resources away from clinical trials, reallocation or evacuation of site staff and subjects, or as a result of government-imposed curfews, warfare, violence, or other governmental action or events that restrict movement. These developments may also result in our inability to access sites for monitoring or to obtain data from affected sites or patients going forward. We could also experience disruptions in our supply chain or limits to our ability to provide sufficient investigational materials in Ukraine and surrounding regions. Alternative sites to fully and timely compensate for our clinical trial activities in Ukraine may not be available and we may need to find other countries to conduct these clinical trials. If these clinical trials are further interrupted, our clinical development plans for these product candidates could be significantly delayed, which would increase our costs, slow down our product candidate development and approval process and jeopardize our ability to commence product sales and generate revenues.
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There have been no other material changes in our risk factors from those disclosed in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year-ended December 31, 2021.
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